In yesterday's post I mentioned Cinzia Ruggeri's "Homage to Lévi-Strauss" (1983-84) ziggurat dress stating that this Italian designer was widely quoted (or rather plagiarised) by many others.
A friend who read the post wrote me asking to elaborate this point further, so here's an example of Ruggeri's "Abito Letto" (Bed Dress) originally created for Vogue Casa in 1986 consisting in a quilted duvet gown matched with a satin pillow, and a design from Viktor & Rolf's Autumn/Winter 2005-06 ("Bedtime Story") collection.
Ruggeri was also among the first ones who experimented with LEDs and liquid crystals, lighting up dresses as early as 1981, like Chalayan did in his Autumn/Winter 2007 collection.
I recently spoke to Cinzia Ruggeri and she laughed about it saying "Oh, I know!", then proceded to point out further connections between her work and that of other contemporary fashion designers.
Were they actually trying to explore the concept of plagiarism in a sort of postmodernist way or did they actually think nobody would have found out? The doubt remains.
By the way, this is how the "Homage to Lévi-Strauss" dress looked when Matia Bazar's voice Antonella Ruggero wore it in 1984 to sing "Aristocratica" on Italian TV - please note also the matching ziggurat-shaped bows and ties of the other band members (starts from around 07:19 - the clip before shows Antonella Ruggero wearing another creation by Cinzia, the teardrop skirt suit with matching gloves).
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